Gear Bits | Gear Diary

Angry Birds Head Way South…to Rio!

Have you beaten all the “regular” Angry Birds levels, and even conquered Angry Birds Seasons? Do you open the game and admire all your 3-star levels and awesome high scores? Well, get your flinging fingers limbered up…because a new Angry Birds is coming this spring! Fox has the new animated movie “Rio” coming out this spring, about birds…Rovio has a game about birds. It’s a match made in casual gaming heaven! No word on the exact release time beyond March 2011, but the trailer makes me very excited for the game! Via Androidcentral

Gear Bits

GD Quickie: Yurbuds Gets Another Convert…

I wanted to do a quick follow-up post on my post-CES piece on Yurbuds because the company just gained themselves a new fan. The Yurbuds are special earbuds that stay in your ears during exercise and although they are priced below $50 sound like earbuds costing much much more. So here is the thing, my wife Elana hates wearing ear buds. She finds them uncomfortable and, at times, even painful and hates them coming out all the time. As a result she won’t wear them. This poses a problem for her since she works out all the time and would love…

Gear Bits

Incipio’s Bespoke Cases

While at CES, Dan gave me a code he had picked up at Incipio’s booth to create one of their “Bespoke Cases” for free. Curious about the product and the resulting case, I decided to give it a try with a picture I’d been holding onto for a while. Granted, the picture wasn’t as high resolution as I might have liked, but I thought it would be cool to see it on a case. After downloading the Incipio Bespoke App, I went through the customization process and added my picture. Although the option was present in the app to “move…

Gear Bits

Timing is Everything

How cool is this? While having my morning coffee I read a post that it was one year ago today that the iPad was first introduced. That’s right, one year ago today all the speculation about an Apple tablet ended, the computer world was turned on its head, and my all-time favorite gadget was announced. It was a huge day that will rightly be seen as a watershed moment in computing when people look back years from now. Then I saw a second post entitled, TV Hit the Public 85 Years Ago Today. So let me get this straight. 84…

Gear Bits

Borders Gives New Meaning to “Everything Must Go!”

I am going to say up front, I have no idea the circumstances under which this transaction took place…but in catching up with an old Borders co-worker, she mentioned that Borders apparently sold everything down to the studs when they closed down our old store. After exchanging a few jokes about who would want the café display case, she said she’d heard Borders sold a toilet seat and a urinal. Borders is so broke they sold someone a urinal. If that’s not a frightening sign, then I don’t know what is!

Gear Bits

Be Safe Out There!

Music is great. It can keep you motivated on a run, or help you maintain a certain speed. Plus having music can help the time go by quickly. But please, please, please, be aware of your surroundings. If you’re running outside, stick to the sidewalks in well-lit areas, or leave the headphones home. This story is really sad, and while yes, most people don’t run on train tracks, it’s just as dangerous running on the side of the road with music blaring. The news is a few days old, but I thought about it on my run today; I try…

Gear Bits, Reviews

Checking out the ASUS Eee PC 1008P Seashell Karim Rashid Collection Netbook

I was selected to be one of a group of bloggers who’ll get the use of an ASUS Eee PC 1008 netbook for a year. This isn’t quite the typical netbook though, as this is a “Seashell Karim Rashid Edition” … and before you ask, no — I had never heard of Karim Rashid until I saw his name attached to this netbook. With that said, this is easily one of the most intriguing case designs I’ve ever seen. The entire surface of the netbook is covered in Karim Rashid’s soft-touch “Techno-chic Digi-wave design”, and instead of being the type…

Gear Bits, News

Kickstarter Project Focus- The Vere Sandal Company

I’m really digging this whole Kickstarter concept. If you are not familiar with Kickstarter, it is an online threshold pledge system for funding creative projects. Kickstarter has funded a diverse array of endeavors,ranging from indie film and music to journalism and food-related projects. One of a new set of fundraising platforms dubbed “crowdfunding”, Kickstarter facilitates gathering monetary resources from the general public, a model which circumvents many traditional avenues of investment. Project owners choose a deadline and a target minimum of funds to raise. If the chosen target is not gathered by the deadline, no funds are collected (this is…

Gear Bits

Borders Appears on ’10 Most Likely to Disappear in 2011′ List

Carly Z has written quite a bit about ailing Borders, including a recent look at why Barnes & Noble shouldn’t buy them. Turns out she was prophetic, as a DailyFinance article today listed them as one of the 10 most likely companies to disappear in 2011. Here are their thoughts: The large bookstore chain is almost gone already. The only question remaining is whether it will be dissolved or sold to a related retailer like Barnes & Noble. It appears Borders has little choice other than to go bankrupt, given its debt and cash-flow situation. Two ominous signs for the…

Gear Bits, Reviews

The BulletTrain Express Keyboard Platform; Thankfully Someone Was Listening

I have been using a Mac laptop of some kind for a relatively short amount of time — only since March 2008, but since then there has always been a MacBook nearby, whether it was the 15″ MacBook Pro, a first generation MacBook Air, a second generation MacBook Air, a 17″ MacBook Pro, or more recently an 11″ MacBook Air. I’ve been pretty vocal stating my opinion that Mac makes some of the best hardware available, even if I am pretty agnostic about whether their operating system is better than Windows or not. Beyond the all metal bodies and slimmer…

eBooks, Gear Bits

Kobo eReader Gets Featured on the Office!

Tonight on The Office our friends at Kobo snuck in a great bit of product placement! I won’t spoil the whole scene, but it’s very amusing and manages to add in a pitch about how many books the Kobo Reader can hold! We’re working on getting a screenshot, but until then head over to the official Office site to catch the episode online!

Gear Bits

TikTok Creates an Evolved “iPod nano as Watch”

The TikTok Multi-Touch Watch Band that took-off on Kickstarter.com is now shipping. The goal was to raise $15,00 in pre-production pledges and, in the end, they raised over $940,000. With that kind of money and press it would have been kinda rotten if the actual product was … well, rotten. Well mine came today and it is anything but. This band actually makes the iPod nano look and feel LIKE a watch. It is easy to pop the mp3 player in, and it doesn’t feel all that bulky. The actual watch band is sturdy but soft and the hardware is…

Gear Bits

Mac App Store Opens Door to App Store Convergence

With the arrival of the Mac App Store it is easier than ever to see and purchase Mac applications. Having spent some time perusing the App Store over the last few days I was pleased to discover that some of my favorite iOS app are also available for OS X. Of course there is the Mac version of Angry Birds (truth be told, playing it on a touchscreen device is MUCH more enjoyable), but there are also apps like SketchMee. It is the app that that let me make the above picture in a matter of seconds. I love being…

Gear Bits

A Surprise iPad Tutorial Session

The first night Elana and I were here in Cabo we had dinner at one of the sit down restaurants here at the resort. A nice young guy came by and asked if we wanted a picture taken. We politely declined. On the way out we saw him uploading some of the photos using his MacBook Pro and his iPad. Of course I had to strike up a conversation. Turns out Samir is French, and had originally come here for an internship in hospitality management. He had decided to come back and start his photography business with a friend. I…

Gear Bits, Reviews

iMainGo Portable Speaker Systems More Than Just Portable

Portable Sound Labsis the company behind iMainGo, a portable external speaker kit for your portable device such as an iPhone or touch. They sent me a test unit quite some time ago ,and somehow it made its way into the back of the closet. Since that time they have released an updated iMainGo 2 and now the iMainGo X for more lifestyle integration. So, why my oversight? To be honest, I do not lead that portable of a lifestyle. Mine is more mobile – actually mostly mobile. When I am not test-driving new cars I am driving a fleet vehicle…

Events, Gear Bits

Veruca Salt Had It Right!!!

Gear Diary, Today I was going through some of the pictures Francis took while we were at CES 2011 last week and I came upon one that captures the two words we “instant gratification-loving” tech bloggers like most…

Gear Bits

IoSafe Has Got My Back; Do They Have Yours?

Freshly arrived back from CES, I found waiting for me an IoSafe 1TB fireproof, waterproof, and — as has been demonstrated multiple times by this site (and many others) — a virtually indestructible SoloPRO Desktop External Hard Drive. I’m looking forward to setting up this beast and putting it to work protecting my data. Knowing that any files, pictures, movies and music stored on it will be kept safe — even if something unimaginable and catastrophic should happen to Kev’s and my home — gives me a peace of mind that is hard to describe. Check out the IoSafe site,…

Events, Gear Bits

The iPad in Action In Las Vegas!

This morning was my last morning in Vegas. Yes, CES is over. As I was checking out of the hotel I noticed something I had missed when I checked in on Monday. The simple LCD screens at the front desk aren’t screens at all. No, they are iPads that have been secured into the desks with a bezel wrapping around them. The only thing that gave them away as iPads was the telltale button that remained exposed at one side. The iPads were not being used as simple screens though. No, they were used to display the bill, interact with…

Gear Bits

Spice Up Your New Year with Fyre TV’s FyreBoXXX

Are you one of those people who orders adult movies when you stay in hotel rooms? Oh, don’t worry … I’m not here to judge you! But if adult entertainment is your thing, and you hate getting raised eyebrows from nosy hotel staff, then you might want to take a look at Fyre TV’s new FyreBoXXX.

Gear Bits

Please Rob Me; the Perfect Compliment to Foursquare and Twitter

If you’re a burglar, and you are tired of staking out homes only to be stymied as you break in because the owner is still there, have I got an application for you! Stop staking out houses and start staking out the new site, Please Rob Me. Instead of watching to see if there is activity in a house, you can locate users in your area who are mindlessly using Foursquare to broadcast their location to everyone on Twitter. Picking a mark is easy! Enter your area and look for someone who is eating a meal, attending a sports event,…

Gear Bits

Travel With The booq Taipan Lift

I am reviewing the booq Taipan Lift ($89.95 – $99.95) by using it during my quick trip to San Francisco for TeleNav’s Waypoint. It is a briefcase style laptop bag which, to be quite honest, isn’t my preference. (I tend to like messenger bags and backpacks.) Having just gone through airport security, however, I am totally sold on this bag for travel. There are, in fact, three specific design aspects of it that have already come in rather handy.